But thinking makes it so?

1. Some years ago I was working in the library at Oxford Brookes University where one of my colleagues was a young German woman. One morning she said to me:

"I can't understand how the students can be late with their books. After all, they have very small rooms."

2. Yesterday I was working in the shop when a young art student came in - not Spanish, I think, but Latin American, and we carried on a conversation partly in Spanish, partly in English. She asked me how I was finding Spain ("me gustan los Pirineos", I said) and she asked what things I don't like. Being, unusually, in a mood to put things euphemistically, I said that Spain was not very efficient. "Efficient?" she asked. I tried to say it in Spanish - "¿eficiente?" - but as she still appeared to be struggling with my accent, I picked up the dictionary and showed her. Eficiente.

She said she still didn't understand what it meant.